Miguel de Unamuno’s Tragic Sense of Life is a masterpiece of twentieth-century Spanish literature and an accessible introduction to existential philosophy. Unamuno is fascinated by the interplay of faith and reason, and he locates our common humanity in the tension between the two rather than the triumph of one over the other. He does not opt for heart over head, but for a paradoxical human being that embodies both.
Circa l’autore
Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo was born September 29, 1864, in Bilbao, the capital of the Basque region of Spain. For most of his career he was rector at the University of Salamanca. After the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, Unamuno made his anti-Franco stance absolutely explicit in a public confrontation with General Millán Astray in Salamanca on October 12. He died on December 31, 1936, while under house arrest.